The popularity and convenience of the Internet has resulted in the reinvention of entertainment and communication services. Users have turned, for example, to IP (Internet Protocol) telephony as a matter of convenience in that both voice and data services are accessible through a single piece of equipment, namely a personal computer. Also, online gaming has grown in popularity, as broadband data services have been widely adopted. Now that bandwidth has been made more readily available, consumers have engaged in viewing and exchanging video streams online. Consequently, there is great interest in providing more video applications, such as broadcast television, over the Internet. The integration of voice, video and data services poses a continual challenge in that these services traditionally have been under the auspices of different service providers with different business and engineering objectives. Therefore, from the perspective of the user, no end equipment has been devised to provide a seamless service.
Therefore, there is a need for providing an integrated approach to obtaining voice, video and data services.